


Strangers in the Night

by havisham



Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Extremely Reluctant Crossovers, Gen, M/M, Minor Violence, Reluctant Crossovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 16:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3775894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some of Maglor's wanderings, noted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strangers in the Night

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: Cross someone TC and someone Tolkien? (This is how up I am on Tolkien, I can't get much more specific than that. Er, not a Hobbit. Prolly not an Ent either!)

All the stories had been told and forgotten again, all the songs sung away. The shoreline had changed, again and again. Arda shuddered, old and tired, much of its beauty fled. 

He wandered, never staying in one place for very long. The new world turned out much like the old, eventually, coming ever closer to utter ruin. 

He still lived, though he had given up wondering why. There had been a choice somewhere, a choice that had stopped him from following his brother in his last adventure. Hhe remembered it well, though he hadn’t been there, how the earth had swallowed his big brother up with a weary sigh and a lazy lick of flame. Gone. 

Maglor sang a eulogy, accompanied by the lapping of waves against the pebbly shore. In pain and in regret – oh yes, there was that. He proved to be as good at contrition as he had been in crime, although he still craved an audience for his sorrow. 

Sometimes he felt a thought of another, brushing lightly against him in sleep. But he rebuffed it, every time, and at last, it came no more. That was when Maglor knew that Elrond had crossed the sea. 

The world changed, but Maglor stayed the same. Well, not exactly. He did not sing overmuch, and eventually his voice diminished, after countless years, into a trickle. Ruined, a mighty torrent turned to a dry riverbed.

Hm. 

He liked the image, and wrote it down on a piece of birch bark. 

He would stay in a place for a decade or two, but more often than not, he would slip away before he aroused suspicion. And he walked on. He walked a long time, and ignored the sly looks of astonishment that the Men gave him. They were so young, even the eldest of them, and he did not blame their curiosity. 

Now, of course, he was no longer so uncommonly tall, but still, his face, his eyes, sharpened and unsettlingly old and strange, gave people pause, made them uneasy, and occasionally, made them angry to the point of violence. 

It wasn’t just his looks, of course. 

After that tragic misunderstanding in Hamelin, Maglor had retreated into the woods for a century or four, until he could not stand it any longer. He had to be near the sea. 

*

The city he picked and the time, however, were not a very good choice. Men, as a rule, seemed to relish war rather more than even his brothers had, but this one was only just beginning. Maglor kept his head down and found work playing the piano some nights in a club. He wasn’t well-paid for his efforts, but after his shift, he would look and see several people still rooted to their seats and standing, tears in their eyes. 

It was an eccentric place. They did not mind it when he kept his gloves on while he played. 

One day, he looked up to see a familiar face in the audience. Daeron looked much the same as he had done the night he had beaten Maglor -- unfairly -- during the Mereth Aderthad. His hair was a little short now, of course, but not as short as current fashions dictated. His sneer was the same. 

“Hail, kinslayer,” Daeron said, after the set. His Sindarin still carried with it the antique shade of Doriath. 

“Hello, Daeron. Keeping well?” Maglor gathered up his coat and stuffed his tips into his pocket. He went out to the back, and noticed to his dismay that Daeron was following him. 

Lightly, Maglor said, “Still mooning, are you, over the girl who would have nothing to do with you?” 

“I ought kill you,” Daeron was saying. “To avenge the murder of Lúthien’s son.” 

“It was not I who did it. And besides, he did kill my brother.” 

“Your appalling family –!” Daeron looked like he was going to say something quite scathing, but instead, he pulled close to Maglor, his eyes narrowed. “No. You are appalling.” 

“I am,” Maglor said. “But that’s all in the past, wouldn’t you say?” 

Daeron was silent. 

Maglor sighed. “But I don’t suppose we’ll ever get over it.” 

Daeron sniffed. “Speak for yourself.”

“I always do, my dear.” 

“I’m not your dear,” Daeron snapped. 

Maglor smiled. Perhaps it was the smile that did it, because something flashed in Daeron’s hand, and Maglor felt a sharp pain in his side. Daeron was gone in moment, leaving Maglor alone, with bloodstained fingers. 

He felt – surprised. 

That was not quite how he had expected things to go, but then again, Maglor had always found that reality was stranger than fiction. The cut wasn’t deep, and he was walking steadily to the door when someone came by quickly and took a hold of his hand. 

Maglor recognized him, of course, though he didn’t come here often. A Man, quite young, but -- there was a sort of reserve about him that Maglor recognized. Lanyon, his name was -- Maglor liked that he smelled like the sea. He said something about summoning the police -- a polite fiction rather than anything else; the police would certainly not take kindly to the patrons of this particular establishment -- but Maglor shook his head anyway. 

"It's nothing, a scratch. Besides, he had his reasons." 

Maglor saw the expression on his face change into something like contemptuous recognition. Maglor grinned that fatal grin again. When Lanyon offered to patch him up, Maglor accepted. 

*

Later, in the blurred hours before dawn, Maglor rolled off the bed and began to dress. The floor was cold against his bare feet and he hurried. Lanyon turned in his sleep, his face oddly young now, stripped of his defenses. Maglor hesitated for a moment and then bend down, kissed the top of his head.

Outside, only the distant barking of a dog disturbed the quiet of the early morning. Maglor began to walk. His head was foaming with ideas, songs that would soon be sung. 

West, he thought. I will go west and remain.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Maglor_20 for a quick beta!


End file.
